The left is employing a new tactic in its effort to defeat conservative Republicans that is designed to tie candidates to hot-button issues they’ve not even voted on, David Avella, president of GOPAC, tells Newsmax.TV.

The tactic is on display in Pennsylvania where Republican Ryan Mackenzie is battling Democrat Patrick Slattery for an open state house seat in a special election in Allentown’s 134th district.

An ad campaign by Planned Parenthood linked Mackenzie to a measure that would require women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound. The bill was eventually shelved after controversy erupted over it and similar legislation in other states.

“This is a race where Planned Parenthood has dumped $100,000 worth of television advertising against Ryan, making accusations against him on legislation that he’s never had an opportunity to even vote for, Avella said.

“He’s not serving in the state house yet. But they’re trying to prop up their weak candidate with $100,000 worth of negative advertising against Ryan in hopes that they can steal a seat from Republicans and put them one step closer to majority in Pennsylvania, which again as I mentioned with an outright lie about where he stands on legislation that isn’t even going to be voted on in the Pennsylvania house this year.”

Avella charged the campaign against Mackenzie is “an increasing tactic of the Left that they’re going to try and divert this election to anything except the economy.

“Because they know their record is so terrible about that and that’s why voters ousted them in 2010, and so their tactic, and we see in state after state and special election after special election, they’re dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars against conservative Republican candidates on issues that voters aren’t talking about and quite frankly that as a candidate they’ve never voted on in a state legislative chamber, but the left is trying to make it out through their lies that somehow our candidate had done that.”